


breaking habits

by eleven_eleven



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, F/M, OR IS IT, Time Loop, ventfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:02:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26590075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleven_eleven/pseuds/eleven_eleven
Summary: Simply put: a game of hide and seek.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 16
Kudos: 55





	breaking habits

The first time it happens, Vanya loses the tip of her fingernail.

It was an inconspicuous little thing, the shorter length of her ring finger. It does not look chewed like its fellow siblings. She doesn't even notice it until their scheduled manicure every Friday from Mom, who gently chided her to "keep all the other fingers neat like this one."

Five looks up from where he's sitting in the line and raises a brow. Then a soft blanket of black draped over everything.

* * *

The second time, Vanya notices the droplet of blood near her pinky toe. It seems to be a hangnail unceremoniously torn from the skin.

Vanya wipes the blood carefully, tossing the tissues in the bin. There was a pinch of hurt every time she steps on her left foot, but it can be easily ignored. It just stung a little more when she stood up in a tiptoe. Mom was the only one who was ever ordered by Father to fetch it and Vanya would never be caught raising this issue to her.

"Why won't, _ugh!_ "

She tried to keep quiet, but since everyone else is in training, she figured she would be in the clear.

Speaking of which, weren't they trying that new obstacle course Father designed today? Vanya recalled it had trampolines attached and everything—she asked for permission to use it after training hours and got dismissed as per usual. _"We must maximize the utility of equipment, Number Seven,"_ he had said. _"And using the device for mere pleasures would not be it!"_

Merely swiping the box from the hanging cabinet obviously doesn't work, so she went out to fetch a stool. Waiting outside is Number Five, arms crossed. And if Vanya cared to decipher the wrinkles on his face, she'd learn that his expression seems crossed, too.

"What were you doing in there?"

"Nothing."

Five raises meticulous brow and Vanya just puffs her cheeks. Five likes non-verbal communication because he wants everyone to match his speed. Any person who lags behind are stamped unworthy for future conversation, while any person who "dares presume" his intent is simply barred from existing within a five mile radius. Vanya gets a special pass for being not put off by these irrational standards at all.

Five teleports in, out—then dumps the first-aid kit on her waiting arms.

"Where are you injured?"

She clasps his arm, alarmed. "No—wait—it's not me—"

Again, a blanket of black.

* * *

The third time it happens, there's a scrape on her knee that looked way too clean for it to be a result of tripping in the yard.

A tiny centimeter of skin is cut off, dripping blood. Vanya took advantage of the shock to grab her sock, tighten the knot, and dive on the bed. The comforter lay heavy on her wound, but she ignores it in favor of skimming the latest chapter of the Little Prince. Her eyes glaze over the pages (she could almost recite it by memory), but she's thankful for the distraction when Five appears in her room with a pop.

"The door was open, Five."

"Eh. Inconvenient."

Then he plops down Vanya's bed with no preamble. Vanya closes the book with a flourish, stretching to place it on the bedside table. The new position allowed her to angle her knee more carefully.

The new position also hurt.

Her lips twitched.

"Is practice over?"

"You know our schedule, Vanya."

Crap.

His eyes narrow.

Five's new posture is suspicious. His eyes roam over her arms and face, and upon seeing no problem, he leans away. Vanya will eagerly take up that semi-approval. She needs to last even a day (work from tiny goals to bigger visions), but Five is making it hard for her.

"I thought Father extended it. I didn't see you twenty minutes ago," she mutters.

"Yeah, well, you were stuck in your room." And with that, he stood up. Vanya reserves the sigh of relief for later, when Five is out of earshot. She might also need to move the first aid for later this evening, after 9PM. Five has been on Father's watchlist lately for staying up till three. She's not sure. She's just winging her plans at this point.

"I was busy reading, _Five_."

Five eyes her carefully. "Father will get mad if you wear your shoes to bed, _Vanya_."

There are obvious quotation marks as to how he called Reginald.

Matching his gaze, Vanya slips her hand underneath the blanket, dropping the other shoe with a thud. "Father won't get mad now, I hope. I'll just dust it off. Thank you for reminding me."

Just when Vanya thought he's about to give another quip, Five disengages. He ruffles her hair—uncharacteristic of him, really. Vanya surmises he's trying to feel for bumps or cuts somewhere in her scalp. "Alright. I'll see you at dinner?"

"Sure."

Five exits through the door, sealing it, and the click seemed to echo in Vanya's ears.

  
The thing with Five is that counting his steps remains an exercise in futility. It would be better for someone to mail a Father's Day card to Reginald Hargreeves. At least, if the kids are lucky, they get to be emotionally terrorized by their glorified tutor ripping the card into pieces and throwing it in the fireplace. According to a testimony that definitely did not come from Number Four, the spectacle almost mimicked fireworks.

So Vanya does not come out of bed after five, fifteen minutes. She scavenges her dresser for an extra sock and hides the stained one in her pocket. It hurts. She does not come out of the bed until she is sure she has stretched the fabric over her gash. It really hurts. There are pinpricks in her eyes but she forces herself to ignore it. There's only a short window to get a bandage before the blood starts flowing freely again, and she can't take that chance.

She carefully climbs out of bed, reaching for a footstool in the corner. She doesn't dare fold her knee just in case the injury got further irritated. Every step feels like someone was tickling her leg, and she almost wants to scrub the itch off. Mostly she just feels icky.

When she arrives at the bathroom, the injury was nothing more than a mere sting. The stool thankfully did not creak and she manages to slap a bandage on before dinnertime rolls in.

  
Dinner at the Hargreeves is an expensive event. Tonight's menu is goose with black pepper, garam masala and gooseberries. All ambient lighting are lit, the chandelier sparkling. It's almost ironic how unenjoyable it is.

Ben gives her a small smile of acknowledgement when she fell in line. Five's attention is thankfully not on her—he's busy arguing with Allison about language and semantics.

The chatter halts after Father clears his throat.

"I believe," he starts slow, threatening, like a snake coiling up a tree trunk, "the first thing I thought you all were manners."

He speaks as if he had domesticated wild wolves and is irritated about how they did not know how to use a doorknob.

There was a soft clacking of shoes. Luther's back is ramrod straight, while Klaus seemed to curl into himself no matter how hard he tried to present proper posture. Diego's eyes flit towards Mom's before forcing his gaze ahead. Vanya catches Five's eyes before he fully faced front.

Reginald, of course, had never been satisfied with the amateur displays of maturity he received from tiny humans with underdeveloped prefrontal cortices. Instead, he declares, "As for your consequence—you have to prove you can maintain that attitude. Dinner will be postponed for half an hour."

Everyone's faces fell.

Reginald, unperturbed, continues, "If I so much as see anyone twitch, I'll increase it by five minutes."

Luther stands a little straighter, as if to compensate for his siblings. In Vanya's imagination, Luther is intent to protect them—but Vanya also knows that his actions belie hunger for approval. Luther proved that himself forty loops ago.

  
The thirty minute punishment would normally be no problem for Vanya, so used to standing in the sidelines as her siblings snagged all the cool trophies. What became apparent, however, is that Reginald's no twitch rule was in full swing, and they've accumulated an extra half-hour just from Klaus alone. The running tally has Klaus on the first place with 6 offenses, Diego second with 3, and Five at third with 1. Said offense only happened because Klaus was dizzy with hunger pangs, and Five can only either catch him or leave him to crack his skull.

Reginald dismissed Grace trying to intervene, but he did allow Pogo to give Klaus a glass of water.

Vanya's wound does not itch, but she feels a tiny pang of pain every now and then. Every time it happens, she purses her lips. She's glad that Ben's frame manages to hide her face from view.

The clock continues to tick, and Vanya briefly considers if Reginald Hargreeves also had mechanical insides.

  
They eat in silence at 9:20PM. The entire dinner was a quiet affair. The utensils whispered clinks and the goose was cold. Allison is not trying to nudge Luther by the foot. The only sound that rose above the hum of crickets is the sloshing of juice being poured to glasses.

  
In bed, Vanya brings out her copy of the Little Prince again. It did not have notes in the margins—but it doesn't matter, since Vanya remembers the scribbles by heart. There had been no other choice when she realized she cannot anticipate when she will land.

"Reading that again?"

The blue glow of Five's powers were competed with by the stream of moonlight from the window. The white cast bathed Five's expression, and Vanya did not miss how he looked tired. Vanya can almost feel the deep aching in her bones herself.

"I'm almost done. I like the message."

Five stares at her blanket. She surreptitiously nudges it a little higher. Five didn't seem to mind.

Vanya says, "Father's angrier tonight. I don't think he's going to let you off easy if he catches you."

"I left it looped."

Vanya nods, closing her book properly.

"Do you mind if we sleep together tonight?"

Her returning look is blank. The gash throbs in warning. And in a quick few seconds, Vanya surmises the pros and cons of letting Five in her bed. Five had already been wary ever since earlier this afternoon. He definitely was not able to catch her taking the first-aid kit and he wasn't able to get a good look on her knee during dinner. Their bodies would be under the covers for most part and neither of them are chaotic sleepers.

Unless Five knew specifically what he's looking for, Vanya should be in the clear.

As for whether Five knows or not, it should depend on why he dropped by her room in the first place. Was he worried after Reginald's punishment, or did he hope to catch her during a moment she's unaware? Which is riskier: giving him the chance to confirm, or shoving him away just to heighten his suspicion?

"Vanya." His gaze is pleading.

She takes the risk.

"... Alright."

Five gives her a tiny smile.

He gets in the bed, clutches her hands, brushes their feet, and the world turns black.

* * *

The sixth time around, her arm has a gash extending from the forearm to the inside of her elbow. It throbs and it burns and she feels as if the pain is swallowing her. She distantly remembers crashing waves—the pain easing out to a quiet numb before it resurfaces in a tide. She grasps at anything to stop the bleeding.

Vanya was so out of it she can't even be thankful that the Umbrella Academy is out on a one week mission at France.

After tying her arm with a blanket, Vanya hops out of bed in haste to get it cleaned. She gathers the bedsheet and the pillowcases with droplets of blood and hauls them towards the laundry room, where Mom won't be since her task at this hour is to weed the garden.

But then she opens the door and is up face-to-face with Five.

"Vanya."

Before the world turned black, the only thing that resonated was Five's disappointed whisper of her name.

**Author's Note:**

> this was written last night as i was suffering from my eighth' ear infection (yes you heard that right) and will continue until the marshmallow in my ear stops terrorizing the right side of my head.
> 
> thus, updates are not intended but will probably come given how much it hurts.


End file.
